What is the Share of Voice?
The share of voice (SOV) is a metric in marketing that measures the visibility or presence of a brand, product, or service in relation to its competitors. It essentially refers to the brand’s popularity, awareness, and dominance level in the industry and, in that sense, illustrates its place within the market.
In SEO, the share of voice represents the visibility of your website on SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages) for specified keywords and the proportion of clicks it receives.
Logically, the higher your share of voice, the greater your popularity, visibility, and authority within your industry.
Even though the share of voice was traditionally used to refer to the share of paid advertising, it is crucial to note that today, this term has a more comprehensive meaning.
It now encompasses various measurable forms of brand awareness - such as website traffic, PPC, and social media mentions - and acts as a direct reflection of a brand’s overall visibility online.
Keep in mind that there’s a difference between the share of voice and the share of the market:
These two metrics are relatively similar in concept and are sometimes used interchangeably. However, the latter refers only to the percentage of the market that a brand controls in terms of sales and revenue.
Why is the share of voice important?
The share of voice is important because it can help a brand understand its current position within a given market and the potential challenges it might face and benchmark its success against the competition.
It’s an effective way for brands to measure their popularity and visibility against their biggest rivals.
And when you know where you currently stand, it becomes easier to take the steps required to achieve growth and navigate a competitive market successfully.
On that note, here are some key reasons why you need to measure the share of voice:
- Public relations - Since SOV measures brand-related media coverage, it can play a key role in assessing the effectiveness of your PR campaigns and marketing. These findings can also help you make informed decisions about your media strategy in the future.
- Consumer insights - One of the most important benefits of measuring SOV is that it can provide insight into consumers’ behaviors, opinions, preferences, industry trends, and other valuable information about your audience.
- Campaign tracking - Share of voice can be helpful in measuring the results of your marketing campaign. You’ll see what resonates with your target audiences, what your competitors are doing right, and how to integrate that into your future campaigns.
- Brand management - Measuring SOV is also beneficial for brand management and awareness. It provides insights into how many people know about your brand, how often it’s mentioned on different platforms, and the feelings behind those mentions. That, in turn, allows you to manage your reputation proactively.
How to calculate SOV?
Your brand’s share of voice can generally be measured using the formula below:
SOV = Your brand’s metrics / Total market metrics
This formula remains the same regardless of the marketing channels you are using; the only variations come from your goals and the actual metrics you’re tracking.
On that note, the four areas that brands will primarily concentrate on when measuring their share of voice are:
- PPC share of voice, which is related to measuring your ad visibility, and, to be more specific, Impression Share - the number of times the ad could have shown up versus the number of times it actually has. You’ll find this data under “Campaigns” in Google Ads.
- SEO share of voice, which comes down to your brand’s organic search visibility and how it compares to your competitors. You can use Ahrefs Rank Tracker to check your rankings in SERPs and gain insights into your brand’s organic search SOV.
- Social media share of voice is a relevant and highly accurate metric that can show you how often your brand is mentioned as part of consumers’ conversations on social media.
- Media share of voice, which is intended to measure mentions on blogs and news websites. It’ll also help you determine which online publications mention your main competitors - compared to your brand - and which outlets to turn your attention to.
How to increase your brand’s share of voice?
If you’ve measured your brand’s SOV and determined that some areas need to be improved, here are some things you could do to boost your brand’s share of voice:
- Create valuable content that people will talk about and want to share with others.
- Make it a point to be more active on social platforms. Otherwise, you’ll leave room for your competitors to grow their share of voice.
Don’t merely use social media as a content distribution channel; engage and connect with your audience.
- Establish yourself as a thought leader and an expert in your particular niche by sharing your insights on relevant websites, industry-specific publications, or your blog.
- Take the time to improve your website’s SEO and optimize your content with the right keywords. Higher rankings in SERPs translate into more organic traffic and increased brand awareness.